Charely`s First Day

May 14, 2010

By Anonymous, Princeton, MN

As Charley pulled up to her new High School she noticed that the school wasn't as big as the one she use to go to in the city. She pulled her car into a open parking spot in between two pickup trucks. She could see the inside of the cafeteria through the surrounding glass and noticed how everyone was divided into groups,she started to wonder what group would she fit into which one would accept her. She missed her old school she missed the fact that she didn't have to just pick one group to hang out with. Most of the kids that she hung out with accepted her for who she was. They didn't mind that Charley hung out with the preps,jocks,goths, emo`s, outcast or skaters. She always felt confident in her ability to get along with everyone. As she sat in her car looking in she wondered if it would be so easy with this new bunch of kids. Her Mother kept telling her she would be alright that kids are the same no matter where you live. Charley wasn't so sure on that. She watched as other students parked their cars and got out and watched how they all greeted their friends. She watched as parents dropped of the kids and waved at them as they entered the front of the school. She remembered before she got her drivers license how her dad would drop her off sometimes when she was running late or had missed the bus because she was doing her hair or fighting with her little sister in the morning. She missed him and thought how easily she would give up driving if she could just have her dad drive her one more time. She would give him a kiss and hug and tell him she loves him,instead of just jumping out of the car and running to her friends before school and not even noticing if he pulled away and hoping he didn't yell something stupid out the window first. Something like I will pick you up after school my little peanut. She would give anything if she could just hear those words one more time. She knew she should go into the school soon she knew she should find her class so she wouldn't be late for her first day. She couldn't seem to move she couldn't seem to bring herself to even want to open the car door. She wanted to just start her car and turn and go home, not to their new home but the one in her other life. She didn't want to go to her new house the one that was smaller then the one she use to live in, the new house had an overgrown lawn and no flower boxes on the windows, there is chipped paint on the outside of the house instead of pretty yellow siding with white trim. Her new bedroom has plain white walls and tan colored carpet instead of pink walls,wooden floors covered with soft,fluffy carpers that would wind around your toes if you wiggled your feet in them,she had pictures of her friends taped to every wall in her old room and her dolls and stuff animals sat on a shelf that her dad made her one year because she was running out of room to put her things and was complaining she needed a bigger room. She wanted to hang the pictures back up in her new room but she felt like she couldn't take them out of the boxes. She didn't want to be reminded of her other life,the one she thought was perfect the one she took advantage of the one where her dad made everything all better. She just wanted to go back but she knows she never can. She knows she must go forward and hope everything will be alright. She takes a deep breath checks her lip gloss and hair and opens the car door.

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